Hillary still leads in the national polls, although that lead has shrunk almost daily over the past week. The RCP Poll of polls shows a 30 percent drop in Hillary’s lead, down to just a little over 4 percent. The magnitude of the drop can be seen by comparing the last three ABC News Tracking polls. In polls covering the period 10-20 to 10-22, Hillary’s lead over Donald Trump was 12 percentage points. In their polling covering 10-21- to 10-24 her lead had declined to 9 points. In their 10-23 to 10-26 poll, Hillary’s lead was down to just 4 points. This kind of drop should be alarming to the Clinton camp coming so late in the race for President. Other polls also show a downwards trend for Hillary. My sounding board daughter now focuses on Hillary’s electoral lead, which is still significant. However, key battleground states still show leads for Clinton so small that her electoral advantage (ranging from the 70 votes above the 270 needed for victory, to 18...

The growing wealth and income gap between the top 1 percent and the other 99 percent has reached staggering dimensions. And now, more than ever, the “have-nots” are made up largely by the middle class, which now includes many “workers.” Years ago I dismissed Marx’s class conflict theory as yet another, albeit more radical, utopian socialist dream. Then in my first, of a long line of classes, taken and then taught, about communism, in both theory and practice, I continued to be intrigued by Lenin’s 1917 tract: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Now, nearly 100 years after Lenin wrote his theory of imperialism, and the first time since The Great Depression, Lenin’s check-list for revolution appears close to being realized. Ironically that is largely due to the policies of the “haves” themselves. Whether this has come about mostly by greed or by ignorance is unclear. What is clear, however, is that policy differences between Tump and Clinton will go a long way towards deciding how peaceful a revolution...

Trump’s post-convention 6 point bounce was wiped clean as Hillary emerged from the Democratic Convention with a 6 to 9 point lead, according to most polls. One reason was the well produced program that the Demos put on. Part of it was due to Trump’s own continued poor judgment, his foot-in-mouthitis as he chose to denigrate a gold star mother who son, Capt. Humayun Khan, heroically gave his life in Afghanistan saving others during a suicide bombing. As usual Donald was his own worst enemy. Not only did Trump, who never served in our military himself, insult Mrs Khan and her religion, but he doubled down the next day, expanding his attacks on the Khans. This quickly drew the vocal ire of most mainstream Republicans and veterans throughout the country. The Veterans of Foreign Wars joined in the condemnation of Trump, as they, too, wondered about whether such a man could be qualified to be Commander-in-Chief. As if that wasn’t enough, Trump took on fellow Republicans Sen. John McCain and Speaker Paul...

Seventy years of bi-partisanship have gone into creating a credible deterrence strategy to cope with the challenges posed to our foreign policy in an era of nuclear powers and the means of delivering them. Our deterrence strategy rests upon the elimination and reduction of doubt as to whether certain actions against ourselves and our allies will produce a response by the U.S. that is unacceptable to a potential enemy. The weaving of alliances and other measures taken to implement and maintain this strategy has been supported by every President, Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of State, both Republican and Democratic, since the fateful dropping of those early atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended World War II and ushered in the dangerous nuclear age. This credibility of our response and commitments to our allies have been seriously, if not fatally, weakened by Donald Trump’s clearly ignorant insertion of doubt into the equation. He might as well have invited North Korea across the “no-man’s land” and across the 38th parallel and on into our...

As we move into the deep stretch in the race for Iowa’s convention votes and close to the election in New Hampshire, candidates are pulling out all the stops. Trump continues seeding doubts as to Cruz’s eligibility to be president, and has focused personal attacks on Cruz’s nastiness, calling Cruz the most disliked Senator by his colleagues–which may well be close to the truth. Trump also got the endorsement of Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin, which was all the more pointed since she played a big part in coalescing Tea Party support for Cruz in the Texas race that made him a U.S. Senator. Trump, himself, continues to insult a variety of targets, while calling for a 45 percent tariff on goods coming from China, despite warnings that to do so would hurt our economy, produce a trade war with China, and, no doubt, lead to China retaliating with their own increased tariff on our exports to them. Trump’s absurd proposed tariff, most economists feel, would have dire consequences. It is,...